


The Cell

by SuperFandoms



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bill is his own warning, Bill treats ford a bit like a pet, Casual conversations about the throne of human agony, Ford Pines Needs a Hug, Hallucinations, Isolation, Mental Instability, Tag As I Go, ford cant remember his own brother, ford is going with it, ford is not ok, ford uses a different internal name based on how he feels in the moment, mostly because he cant remember a damn thing, spent a year alone how did anyone think it was gonna go?, time dilation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25779382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperFandoms/pseuds/SuperFandoms
Summary: Time is dead, Bill said to Ford. Time can be anything. Ford, Bill told him, gets to be the first person to experience a year in a second.
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

For a brief moment, Ford was in midair. The next, he was being thrown into a wall, the door before him closing and plunging him into pitch black. He tried shouting, unsuccessfully. Before he could even start to make a sound, his throat froze up and kept him from fresh air for an entire minute.

Gasping for breath once he could finally breathe again, Ford internally grumbled. That's one method of passing the time gone. Did Bill truly intend to leave him alone for a full year? That would be torture- And there it was. Bill was entirely sincere about his intentions, _for once,_ lovely! 

Ford figured that he had best put off exploring the room in full until there was absolutely no way for him to do nothing anymore. Sleeping for long periods of time would be best, and, assuming he would be fed, that would be a decent way to occupy himself. Once he knew the dimensions of the room, exercise would be possible.

Sleep it was, then. He wasn't particularly tired, but if he lay still long enough, surely he would eventually fall asleep. A few seconds passed, and then Ford considered a rather terrifying prospect. What if Bill wouldn't let him sleep? What if his biology was altered, or there was something in the room to stop him from falling asleep?

Panic flowed through Ford- Deep breaths. He was no stranger to panic attacks, he could calm down. Ford took extended breaths, so big his chest hurt, expelling them gradually. There, now he felt better.

Panicking wouldn't help him get to sleep, anyways. Ford laid down on the floor, smoothed dents and ripples texturing the makeshift bed.

\---

Though he couldn't be entirely sure, Ford thought an day had passed. He hadn't been able to sleep, nor had he required any food or liquid. He supposed the latter was a mixed blessing.

Time to explore, then. The room was most likely just a box. Though he had been thrown into the room, Ford really didn't remember what it had looked like before the door closed. On that note, he should try to find the door. He stood up, blood flowing faster than it should for a moment and causing static to flood his vision.

Without anything to brace himself on, the accompanying dizziness knocked Ford to the ground. Standing up yet again, Ford held his arms out in front of himself and began walking, slowly, as to not ram into any walls. Strangely, he didn't seem to be getting any closer to any of the walls. Maybe the room was larger than he thought..?

No, that answer was resoundingly unsatisfactory. More likely would be some sort of space-warping field centralized on this room. Perhaps the center of the room was the anchor? Only one way to find out! Ford broke into a full sprint, panting as he moved. A few minutes, and what was likely a mile later, Ford had yet to reach a wall.

While facinating, this was also frustrating. Well, there's more tests to be done, but he had better save those for later. Might as well review them, though. There were a couple ways this field could work. It could work something like a conveyor belt, attempted movement causing no actual movement, the momentum being anchored and dispersed on a single location.

The second possibility was that the room wrapped around on itself, saving much spellwork but ultimately being a rather boring way to create an infinite space. 

Patience was coming to him, fortunately, so Ford sat down to recover from his run.

\---

Having tested everything he could think of, and living with a complete lack of two senses, Ford was bored. To his internal clock, it had been around four days. Time didn't really matter, if he was to spend a year in this room, but he found keeping track of such things comforting.

A normality, in this dark, yet horrifyingly familiar place.

About an hour passed in Ford's internal clock before he realized he was meditating. A conflicting clash of emotions overwhelmed him for some time, comfort and calm at having found a productive time-consuming task, horror and fear at the activity he associated with Bill, and frustration that he could slip into such a state unknowingly. Ford promptly set about internalizing those emotions and the reasons behind them. If he was going to go through severe isolation, he'd make the most of it.

\---

Roughly a month in, he began hallucinating. Nothing detailed, just eyes, almost cartoonishly simplistic in form. Despite fully knowing that they were fake, Ford still felt nagging doubt. What if Bill _was_ watching him? Surely be wouldn't put himself through the year as well?

No, he would. But still, those eyes couldn't be real. They were hallucinations. No substance to them, most likely. Ford couldn't reach any of them, but they were almost too simple. And they glowed orange. That was a big factor in knowing that they weren't physical. Bill rarely changed his eye colour, except for emphasis.

Ford closed his eyes. He could still feel Bill's staring.

\---

Two months total had passed, Ford thought that at least four had gone by. Without any light to work with, and the sleep deprivation clouding his thoughts, he couldn't properly keep track of time. (The panic attacks that Ford refused to acknowledge didn't help either.) For a brief moment, Ford wondered how life outside was.

He shook his head sharply. No one outside had been waiting these months, it was just him. Going from sitting on his knees to laying down in a few seconds, Ford curled up in himself. An eye blinked into existence before him, tilted at the same angle. Ford blinked and took his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. Still there.

Rolling over, the eye was in the same place. He couldn't really tell if his eyes were open or not, but shut them tight anyways. The eye was still there. Ford looked a different way, then took off his glasses, then plastered his hands over his eyes. The singular, orange eye floated closer.

The panicked man backpedaled, the eye stubbornly remaining in the same place. It floated right in front of his face. Ford swung his hands wildly through the apparition. It burst into sparkles, leaving an afterimage on his eyes. He blinked, and curled up on the floor again. 

An eye popped into existence before him.

\---

Logically, he could understand that, for being alone for what felt like six months, he was doing remarkably well, emotionally, Stanford was a mess. He missed his family. He missed Fidds. He sort of missed Soos and Wendy, though the redhead was quickly entering his good graces. Or, well, was.

Loathe as he was to admit it, Ford even missed Bill. Even with his jarring voice and endless taunting, he was still someone to talk to. Ford idly wondered if the metal plate was why Bill wasn't taunting him now. Either that, or it would 'ruin' the isolation.

Bill's friends would probably get a kick out of whenever he came out of the room, disheveled as he was. They'd throw him around the room, possibly.

By the AXOLTOL, he was touch-starved. He'd take just about any touch, really. Bit scary, that. Oh, who was he kidding. It terrifies him to his bones how willing he would be to accept any touch, to lean into any hit or stroke. Anything other than the stone and his clothes. Anything other than the pitch black and the eyes.

\---

 _Bill finally opened the door to his room, yanking Ford out of the room. Vague shapes behind him blurred, cackling distorted by... Bill blinked softly, glowing as he spoke. Ford gave him the equation-_

Ford snapped out of his hallucination. They weren't dreams, but everything in them felt lifelike. Though he tried, he couldn't remember any words being said, only the meaning behind them. Had he forgotten what words were like.

His breath hitched, and petered to a halt as Ford tried to scream. His vision blurred, even the eyes fuzzing. Oxygen deprivation symptoms shouldn't be appearing this early... Oh, he hadn't really been breathing much lately. It felt strange.

Finally, his throat opened, and Ford choked down silent breaths. Unpleasant, and unless he wanted a way out- No, not doing that. His family would be whole again, damnit! It didn't matter how long it took for him to get out of this room, no one would by dying. The barrier would stay shut and only Gravity Falls would ever have to deal with Bill.

They'd defeat him.

\---

It... It had to have been a year by now, right? Right? He'd see colour again. He'd see his family again, even if he couldn't quite remember what they looked like. There were... Five others? They all had his hair, except... One of them had very bright hair. Close to the eyes' colour, but darker.

He didn't have the words for what colour it was. In truth, he didn't remember colour anymore. He was going off of memorable adjectives entirely.

One member of his family stole his name once, he remembered that much.

\---

Why was he even in here anymore? The year had to be up. The- The full second. It was just a second? He'd be out in a second? That almost made sense. There was some thread connecting "year" and "second" in his head. Who knew why.

Someone had put him here. Would they take him out in a second? Was a second a year? Two years? Second year.

Ford had been alone for ten months.

\---

The eyes stopped showing up a time period ago. He dissociated and hallucinated too often to tell time measurements anymore. He only really knew about seconds and years, but one was big and the other... There was a word he wanted for the size of the not-big time unit. It didn't really matter.

Oh, he was standing up again. When did that happen?

\---

His feet scuffed the floor. He blinked owlishly. Almost too quick for the eye to see, the door to his cage swung open. A bright shape floated before him, and other colours were behind the shape. He wondered why his eyes didn't need an adjustment period to the light.

A sound! "WELL, FORDSIE, SINCE YOU DON'T SEEM TO BE IN ANY STATE TO GIVE ME A NO, HOWSABOUT YOU SHAKE MY HAND AND LET ME FIND THAT EQUATION MYSELF?" Oh, so much sound! He practically bounced over to the shape, it was holding out a hand. Did the shape call him Fordsie? 

Fordsie (Oh that sounded weird! He loved it.) held out a hand in response to the shape, and it seemed to turn to stone before him. Fordsie tilted his head at the shape-rock. It looked dead like this. A second (he knew what those were again) passed, and the statue became bright again. Fordsie grinned.

The shape seemed pleased, projecting bright not-eye-colour fire into numbers and letters, shapes and lines. Fordsie squinted, they looked familiar. The shape pressed a hand to the fire, and with a resounding crack, everything shook.

Eye rotating around its body, the shape looked at Fordsie. "ISOLATION DID A NUMBER ON YOU, DIDN'T IT! HA! HERE, LEMME GET THAT METAL OUT OF YOUR HEAD." With that, the shape plunged his hands into the back of Fordsie's head.

The sensation was painful, but it was sensation! It was touch! A clanging noise echoed behind him, and the shape's bloodied hands moved to ruffle Fordsie's hair. This felt off, but only in the smallest of ways.

Fordsie was content.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! Accidentally wrote all of Bill's lines in normal capitalization, had to manually retype each word.

Fordsie sits, cross legged, on the right arm of the yellow triangle, Bill's, throne.

The triangle himself calls down to Sixer. "ISN'T THIS GREAT, IQ?" He gestures out the front door, to the sight of oil-sheen light warping blue fire over a massive cityscape. Many of the buildings are growing eyes and mouths. 

Somewhat confused, Fordsie (IQ?) replies. "It's lovely, but..." He pauses, biting his lower lip. Embarrassed, he asks, "What is 'IQ'?"

A moment passes with no noise. Bill speaks up, at last. "IT'S A WAY HUMANS TRIED TO MEASURE INTELLIGENCE."

IQ's eyebrows furrow together. "Does the system account for those with brain defects or mental illness and neurodivergency?" In a lower voice, he adds," Or people like me, who've forgotten all but oddly specific things? "

Bill huffs, rolling his eye. "NO, IT DOESN'T. THE WHOLE IDEA'S STUPID."

"If it doesn't account for natural deviation, it is..." He wants to say flawed, but feels that such a word would lack the distaste he has for the concept. " ...stupid. But if it is that bad, why do you call me IQ?" Fordsie looks at Bill, nervous.

An expression adjacent to a grin makes itself known on Bill's face. "BECAUSE YOU, IQ, ARE SMART. NO MATTER HOW HUMANS MEASURE IT."

IQ sits down, legs splayed in front of him, arms behind his back propping him up. He looks up at Bill, whom had resumed watching the changes grow below the Fearamid.

He looks back down at the throne. It's got a unique texture. Sixer runs his fingers along it, feeling all the irregular divots and pockmarks. All the ripples and folds in the material, which seems almost like a pale basalt. His eyes narrow. "What's your throne made of?" He blurts.

Bill laughs. "PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO KEEP THIS PARTY FROM GETTING INTO FULL SWING, OR DIDN'T WANT IT AT ALL!" He smirks.

Sixer frowns. "But the party's nice?" IQ muses, softly, "Maybe they don't like the party because it's strange to them?"

"KEEP GOING, FORDSIE," Bill demands, looking at him curiously.

Fordsie slowly starts back up. "Most aren't aren't used to rampant chaos, but I am, because that's most of what I remember."

"MOST? WHAT ELSE DO YOU REMEMBER?"

He hesitates, trying to recall. "I remember a room filled with cardboard displays, and a cabin in the woods." Bill looks on, interested.

"THE CABIN WAS YOUR HOME AND WORKPLACE FOR YEARS, IT'S WHERE YOU BUILT AN INTERDIMENSIONAL PORTAL, AND MORE-OR-LESS HAD AN ONGOING AFFAIR AND THEN A NASTY BREAKUP."

Fordsie ducks his head, embarrassed. Bringing it back up, he presses. "And what about the room?"

The next ten minutes are spent by Bill, telling Sixer about a science fair in his youth. Frequently, Sixer finds himself shocked at certain details.

Fordsie, appalled at what he used to be, seeing as his brother was innocent, still delights in having a brother. "Could we find, um..." He thinks for a moment. The name was _just_ mentioned! "Stanley?"

Bill huffs. "I CAN'T ENTER THAT PLACE, BECAUSE OF A MAGICAL BARRIER THAT A COUPLE OF TWINS ON THE ZODIAC, PINE TREE AND SHOOTING STAR, SET UP. I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY GOT THE UNICORN HAIR..." Disbelief and annoyance tinge his last sentence .

IQ wonders aloud, "I'm curious, would I be able to pass the barrier?"

Bill laughs. "YOU COULD, IQ! EVEN THOUGH YOU CAN, THOUGH, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD. YET! IT WON'T BE SAFE UNTIL YOU RECOVER MORE OF YOUR MEMORIES!"

Fordsie, earnestly, pipes up. "Do you know of any way I can get my memories back faster?"

"OH YEAH! I BET HEARING ABOUT YOUR PAST COULD NUDGE YOUR MEMORIES IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. TO START... ALRIGHT, THERE WERE ONCE TWO BROTHERS, LIVING IN A SMALL TOWN IN A MINIATURE COUNTRY CALLED NEW JERSEY.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gods I hate writing dialogue. Askin for comments now, no shame in that. I'd appreciate feedback on what parts of this chapter felt odd or out of place, to you?


End file.
